Town Hall Theatre excells with their production of "The Glass Menagerie"

This past week in Lafayette, the Town Hall Theatre opened a highly professional production of Tennessee Williams’ poignant and heartbreaking tale, in “The Glass Menagerie”. In addition, I interviewed one of America’s leading Asian-American authors, Phillip Kan Gotanda, this past week about a new play of his that is still in the developmental stage at the University of California, in Berkeley. This play, entitled “I Dream of Chang and Eng”, is literally a play that has been floating around in Gotanda’s dreams, both daytime and nighttime, in bits and pieces, for the past 20+ years. We’ve got a lot on our plate this week so I’d better get to it - - -.

Town Hall’s current production of “The Glass Menagerie” is an emotion packed production, due in large part to the outstanding acting talent, and the directing skill that Director Susannah Martin brings to the production. The words of Tennessee Williams are a powerful mixture of poetic imagery and prose, forged by years of personal hardship and sacrifice long before his first plays brought the spotlight of fame to his name.

The Glass Menagerie is considered a memory play, a quasi-autobiographical look back at Tennessee “Thomas” Williams’ own difficult past. Amanda Winfield (Heidi Abbott) is a middle aged mother of two children, reminiscent of Williams’ own mother. Tom (Aleph Ayin) her son, shadows Tennessee Williams’ own loneliness and desire for adventure, and Laura (El Beh), speaks to us from Williams’ own sister, Rose, whose insecurity led eventually to insanity. Our characters in this play live in a low rent apartment facing an alley in St. Louis, in 1937.

Amanda, divorced for 16 years after her husband suddenly abandoned the family and disappeared, struggles to make ends meet by selling and renewing subscriptions to serialized periodicals to her friends and church members, while her son, Tom, works as a stock clerk in an unfulfilling warehouse job. Tom, frustrated by his pressure filled family life, escapes as frequently as he can to the safety and solitude and vicarious adventures experienced in the local movie theater. Tom’s younger sister, Laura, is handicapped with a foot deformity and severe shyness and insecurity. Their mother, Amanda, is overprotective and loving and a highly critical parent. Amanda grew up in the lap of Southern luxury, on a plantation where she had friends in all the best of southern social circles. She had myriads of gentlemen callers pursuing her affections and unfortunately married a traveling telephone salesman, who, according to Amanda, “fell in love with long distance”. Amanda is possessed with finding a potential husband for her introverted and handicapped daughter, pushing her son Tom to bring home one of his fellow workers who might be a potential suitor for his sister. Tom is repulsed by the whole process of what he sees as the entrapment of a fellow worker. Even his sister, Laura, is frustrated by their mother’s constant admonitions and frequently reiterated concerns about Laura becoming an old maid.
While the story is a captivating and frustrating story in itself, the images of a world on the edge of war hangs darkly in the wings of this story, poking out unobtrusively from the eloquently expressed, articulate verbal background. Tennessee Williams is first and foremost a brilliant writer and his imagery and passion keep us in the historical moment. At the end of Part III, scene 5, Tom stands on the fire escape smoking a cigarette and in the role of a narrator, explains to the audience about the music drifting up to their apartment from the Paradise Dance Hall across the alley and explains that couples could be seen kissing in the alley below. He says:

“This was the compensation for lives that passed like mine, without any change of adventure. Adventure and change were imminent in this year. They were waiting around the corner for all these kids. Suspended in the mist over Berchtesgarden, caught in the folds of Chamberlain's umbrella. In Spain there was Guernica! But here there was only hot swing music and liquor, dance halls, bars, and movies, and sex that hung in the gloom like a chandelier and flooded the world with brief, deceptive rainbows. . . . All the world was waiting for bombardments!”

Finally, relenting to his mother’s unending pressure, Tom invites an old school chum, Jim, to be Laura’s first “gentleman caller”. Of course, Tom does not reveal that his invitation has anything to do with his sister, or even that he has a sister. He has simply invited Jim to his house to introduce him to his family and to have dinner. The mother flies into a fit of hysterical excitement, trying to turn their humble little walk-up apartment, a “Sow’s ear” if you will, into a “silk purse”, before the gentleman caller’s anticipated arrival. After all, she fantasizes that this one and only “gentleman caller” could be the answer to her concerns and prayers for her daughter!

"The Glass Menagerie"continues at 8 p.m. on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, with Sunday performances at 2 p,m., now through March 19th. Tickets range in price between $29.50 for general admissions and Seniors pay only $22.50 for Sunday matinee performances. There is a separate service charge of $2.50 for single ticket purchases. The Town Hall Theatre is located at 3535 School Street, at the corner of Moraga Road and School Street in Lafayette. Contact the box office at 283-1557 or purchase your tickets online at www.TownHallTheatre.com .

Gotanda's new play, "I Dream of Chang and Eng", premiers at Zellerbach Playhouse on the University of California campus in Berkeley!

This past week I had the opportunity to speak with a playwright whose work I have admired for many years, Mr. Phillip Kan Gotanda. I introduce you to him because you have an opportunity to see the first blush of a new play, to experience a new work in the process of development and perhaps you will be intrigued enough to examine further some of the remarkable body of work he has created to date; at least 19 plays and 4 films.

Karen and I were at first intrigued by the title of a play, “Yankee Dawg You Die”, being produced in 1986, in the small Berkeley Repertory Addison Street Theater where they mounted new and experimental theatrical work. This story about two different generations of Japanese American actors and their experiences in the American film industry, one an older gentleman, Vincent Chang, who was only offered parts that reinforced old Japanese stereotypes and a younger actor, Bradley Yamashita, who will only take dignified and unstereotypical roles. More importantly, while they begin with a tenuous relationship, over a one year period of time as encompassed in the play, they grow to understand their similarities, respect their differences and above all, share their commonality as humans instilled with powerful ambitions and overshadowing insecurities. The story, while focused on Japanese Americans, is really, quite importantly more about the relationships that can be built between different generations and viewpoints. Intrigued by the passion, the poetic beauty of this amazing Asian-American author’s writing skills, we rented a movie, written in 1985 by Mr. Gotanda entitled simply, “The Wash”.

This movie told the story of a newly-separated Nisei (second generation Japanese in America) couple, Nobu and Masi, and their struggles to deal with the roles assigned by their culture and collective past. Masi eventually begins to date a widower by the name of Sadao, while Nobu finds great difficulty in moving on with his life, still imprisoned by memories of his time in the internment camps and the loss of his wife. Masi understands Nobu and attempts to ease his pain by continuing to return to his home to do his weekly wash. It is a beautiful, powerful story of love lost, but the caring that can continue, and often does.

I could go on to discuss the several plays written by Mr. Gotanda that we have seen over the past 20 plus years but instead I will tell you that we eagerly seek out anything of his authorship that we can, because we find his voice to be unique, eloquent and memorable.

I asked Mr. Gotanda about his life growing up in the Stockton area and how he found his way into becoming a playwright and screen writer. I learned that his path to writing came through his love of music, an opportunity to write a musical based on a Japanese fairy tale. It was produced, received reasonable response, he was asked to write another which he did, then began to write plays without music and found a demand for his talent. He says that he often gathered a story from one source and combined with another story from another source melding and merging until he found common messages that resonated with his audiences.

This new play is based on his fascination with the true story of two Siamese Twins, Chang and Eng Bunker, their early lives featured in a Barnum and Bailey “freak” exhibit that toured the world. These conjoined twins eventually bought out their contract, toured the world themselves, became very successful businessmen, settled down on a Southern plantation, and married sisters and fathered 21children. According to Mr. Gotanda, his play is not an exact tale of what their lives were like, but a tale of how he perceived their lives were like. There is not enough factual documented information as to what their daily lives were like, but enough is known to turn his dream into a reality.

Under auspices of the Theater Dance and Performance Studies (TDPS) umbrella at the University of California at Berkeley, and some very generous private funding for this project, this "I Dream of Chang and Eng", is now being brought to fruition in the Zellerbach Playhouse beginning on March 4th, and continuing through the 13th, at 8 p.m. on Fridays, Saturdays and Saturdays. Tickets are a very reasonable $15 for general admission and $10 for seniors and students. Call (510)642-8827 for ticket information or visit their website at tdpsboxoffice@berkeley.edu. Cal Performances are performed at 101 Zellerbach Hall #4800, University of California, Berkeley.